There will be a delectable selection on display in the RSL Lounge on Thursday 2 March for the Radcliffe Science Library’s 2nd Annual Edible Book Festival to mark World Book Day.

This event is free and open to any member of University – students, staff (including Bodleian Libraries staff) – and external readers. Everyone is invited to enter their book-themed culinary creations by bringing them to the RSL Lounge between 9am and 11am on Thursday 2 March.

What is an edible book?

Edible Books are art pieces composed of food that are ‘bookish’, i.e. based on and represent a book title, a book cover, a character, a plot element or theme, or any other attribute or characteristic directly associated with a book, including its form.

What will happen at the event?

All entries will be exhibited, documented, then eaten!

Here’s the plan for the day:

9-11am Drop off entries

11am-1pm Viewing and voting

1pm Awards and refreshments

Prizes will be awarded in a number of categories:

Most Creative

Most Fun

Most Bookish

People’s Choice

If you don’t have time to make your own edible entry, join us in admiring the delicious creations. Everyone who attends will be able to vote for their favorite – the entry with the most votes will be awarded the People’s Choice award.

There will be displays from the collections in the Entrance Hall / Lounge, plus a 3D-printing demonstration and building tours. All are welcome. Readers are invited to participate and bring along friends.

The RSL will be open as normal for readers 10am-2pm.

(For readers who want to study away from the event, the reading rooms on levels 3 and 6 will not be included on the tour.)

We hosted an event with the Oxford 3D Printing Society (http://oxford3dprintingsociety.com/) last week from within the RSL. It featured 3D Printers, 3D scanners and a virtual reality headset from HTC. We would like to thank Shin from the 3D Printing Society for putting on such a great event.

The RSL 3D Printing Team was at hand to showcase our 3D printers and scanners to all the guests who arrived for the event, some even got themselves scanned and 3D printed! This was a great way to introduce people to the technology in a novel and fun way, we hope this will inspire them to use 3D printing/scanning in more creative and academic ways in the future.

HTC were also there to showcase their virtual reality headset the ‘HTC Vive’. This was a great introduction to the world of ‘VR’ for many who had a chance to try it out. At the RSL we have been interested in VR for awhile now and it was a great chance for the staff who hadn’t experienced it to finally give it a go. The ‘HTC Vive’ received great feedback from everyone who tried it and proved to be enjoyable for all the spectators to watch their peers jump around avoiding zombies and painting interesting works of art in a virtual world. This technology is going to change the way we interact with computers and at the RSL we look forward to being a part of it in the future.

We have a new display in the RSL Entrance Hall Lounge – Computer Beats Human: AlphaGo crosses an AI threshold. It focuses on the Go match between the AlphaGo computer program and a professional Go player, Lee Sedol. It includes a Go set for library visitors to try the game.

UPDATE: The Oxford Go Club will be demonstrating how to play the game 12-2pm on Thursday 5th May 2016 in the Lounge. All welcome!

UPDATE 2: The Oxford Go Club will return on Monday 16th 2016, 12-2pm and Monday 23rd, 12-2pm for further Go demos.